Aspiring entrepreneurs advised to block out negative views

WOODSTOCK -- Delegates attending the fourth annual Young Entrepreneurs Forum Wednesday were advised to get rid of the crabs from their bucket.

Singer-songwriter Meaghan Blanchard entertains following her luncheon address Wednesday to the fourth annual Young Entrepreneurs Forum, Strength in Youth.

“If you take a bunch of crabs and place them in a bucket, and one crab tries to escape, the other crabs will instinctively pull the escaping crab back down, Meaghan Blanchard said in advancing her analogy. “The crabs don’t want that crab to get away onto bigger and better things. Those crabs want the other crab to be just as miserable as they are at the bottom of the bucket,” the singer-songwriter said in warning that negative opinions can get in the way of people who are trying to better their lives.

“You know people in your life like this?” she asked. “You have dreams that you’re so over –the-moon about and you run to them for encouragement only to have them stamp them out with negative, discouraging comments.” She acknowledged those comments often come from people close to them.

“A lot of people who are crabs in your life, they just want to protect you, and they think protecting you is keeping you safe,” she said, and acknowledged they some times have to be gently dissuaded from those opinions.

Blanchard, who would later entertain the crowd with some of her songs, told of her own career as a singer-songwriter, and that it was in getting outside of her comfort zone that she has grown.

“My manager always tells me, ‘Meaghan, you’re a rubber band: the more you stretch the farther you go, and the more you stretch, the easier it gets.’”

She also urged aspiring entrepreneurs to have an ‘attitude of gratitude,’ to regularly thank and acknowledge the people who they employ.

The free conference also included a keynote address by MTV’s Daryn Jones, remarkets by Fisheries and Oceans Minister Gail Shea and a panel presentation by young entrepreneurs.

Singer-songwriter Meaghan Blanchard entertains following her luncheon address Wednesday to the fourth annual Young Entrepreneurs Forum, Strength in Youth.